Zucheng, unaware of the conversation that his mother and father were having, continues walking. The heels of his feet hitting the wooden floors causes a loud creaking. Just as they were designed to do. Due to the noise, and Zucheng furthering himself away from his father's office, he is unable to hear the conversation, let alone be aware that his mother and father were even having one.
As he continues walking, he notices that several of the guards stationed throughout the manor are staring at him. Not their usual slightly hostile but mostly neutral stare. No, this one was of agitation. They were grandly displeased about something.
However, Zucheng knew they would do nothing. They can't. Perhaps if his brother was still in the running for heir but now that Zucheng was their one and only option, the guards would not risk the chaos that would happen with his death.
And yet, Zucheng still made sure to figure out why. Not all the guards hated him. Zucheng managed to win a couple of them over using the most mundane of options. Good food, good drink, and pretty ladies serving out the food and drink. Just doing that a few times caused a small group of guards to like Zucheng. As such, he went to them first.
Zucheng knew that this small group often liked to walk around and cause slight mischief instead of training. The only reason they hadn't been fired was due to the fact that when it actually came down to patrolling, guarding, and protecting those six were some of the best.
Zucheng first went to the usual spot that the Six Foolish Kings of Low Dew often went to secretly drink, a koi pond off to the side of the manor's territory. Partially forgotten, it was one of the most peaceful places in the entire manor. And Zucheng's third favorite spot to just lose himself at. To forget his problems and focus on the world around him instead of the drama of his day-to-day.
However, once he reaches the koi pond, no guards were there. He approached the calm waters and stared into it's depths. He has his father's smile but his mother's slight button nose. He wasn't a bad looking man but he wasn't a good looking man either. His light brown hair is like his mother's. It wasn't too long, considering that most men in the Frostjade Empire had quite long hair. Of course, most in the Mortal World did.
Zucheng focuses on his dull orange eyes. They were peculiar. They weren't brown, nor a shade of it. They were orange. Just a shade of orange that looked as if the vibrancy in it was killed. Such eyes were an uncommon sight in the Frostjade Empire. So uncommon, in fact, that Zucheng had never seen a person, man nor woman, who had eyes like his. He's heard the gossip of course. The ill mannered rumors. He doubts it though. His father is far too cruel and prideful to allow a child that isn't his to live for more than three days. Not because it would take three days for Huogi to kill a newborn nor for him to take three days to find the courage to do so. No, the reason is because of an old superstition. This superstition being that if you don't let a life live for at least three days and three nights, that the newborn babe will return as a vengeful Yaoguai.
Zucheng watches the two koi in the pond swim around one another. The afternoon sun casting a golden vibrancy onto the surface of the water. This causes the two koi, a white koi and a black koi to shimmer in a mysterious light. Unbeknownst to Zucheng, his dull orange eyes had begun to glimmer slightly. The two koi circling each other causes Zucheng to think. Think of things he never thought of before. Life, death. Mortality and Immortality. Before this feeling of Enlightenment could fully bloom, a stone was tossed into the lake causing the fish to stop their dance.
Zucheng looks toward his left and saw a man with gray, cheap robes. A servant. Zucheng goes to look back at the pond but the fish are now hiding behind some rocks. He sighs and turns to leave.
"Do you think the fish knew what they were doing?" asked the servant.
Zucheng turns his head towards the servant once more. The servant's hair was long, very long but was held up with a very ornate hair ornament. It was gold with three bloodred rubies and a strange symbol carved into it's obtuse diamond like frame. The symbol looked like a dragon with two faces.
'A Clan's emblem of some kind' thought Zucheng.
The man's hair was black. The darkest, deepest black Zucheng had ever seen. Oddly enough, the man's hair seemed to be dyed or altered in some way due to the fact that eerie red highlights were throughout the man's hair. Zucheng goes to look at the servant in his eyes but Zucheng pauses. The man's eyes were just like Zucheng's. A Dull Orange.
Due to Zucheng's bewilderment, he forgot the servant's question.
"Do you think the fish knew what they were doing?" repeats the servant, his voice calm.
"Weren't they just swimming?" replied Zucheng.
The servant smiles, staring at the pond then slowly turning to face Zucheng. Zucheng continued to stare at the servant, puzzled by the fact that their eyes were so similar. Zucheng wanted to ask but that felt silly.
'Oh hello there random servant. Why do you have my eyes? Did you sleep with my mother?' Utterly ridiculous.
"Answering a question with a question of your own? Good. Very good." the servant said as he nodded in a satisfied manner.
"No, they weren't just swimming. Perhaps to the fish, in the moment they were but..." the man pauses as he motions towards the pond but also beyond the pond using his right arm.
"But to those outside looking in and to those who would remain long after those fish are gone, what those two have done is everything." said the servant.
"You just gave me the answer. The fish didn't know." said Zucheng.
"Using me to find the answer. Smart. Very smart." replied the servant, once again nodding as if what Zucheng said was the exact words that the servant had hoped to hear.
"However, not everyone has the answer. Sometimes, you have to choose an answer for yourself even if deep down you know its false." said the servant.
Zucheng turned to face the pond once more.
"Those two fish... That species of Koi is special. Once a partner is chosen, they mate for life. That dance is how they choose partners. They would have mated soon after, producing children." replied the servant.
"But... you intervened. Causing the dance to fail." replied Zucheng.
"Yes. What I did prevented future generations to be born. In a way, I prevented them from having a miserable life of a small pond." said the servant.
"Was what I did wrong? Preventing life from being born? From flourishing? " asked the servant.
Zucheng focuses on the pond. Staring through the waters, and focusing on the stones of which the two koi were using to hide. What he did was wrong. Preventing a miserable existence? Life has miseries but it also has its joys. Who is this servant to decide what lives and what does not?
"Yes. What you did was wrong." replied Zucheng.
Zucheng isn't sure why he's talking to this servant as if he is familiar with him or why Zucheng is answering every question. It just feels... natural to do so.
"You're right. What I did was wrong. And it should be punished." said the servant, nodding as he does so. Once again pleased with what Zucheng has said.
"Now, let me ask you this? Once those fish are born and grow, that pond will become too small. You cannot move the koi to a new pond. The pond is not yours either. What would you do?" asked the servant.
A strange anticipation was seen in the man. He was heavily anticipating Zucheng's answer.
"I wouldn't do anything. It is not my pond. I do not have the right to do anything with the koi, let alone the pond itself." replied Zucheng.
For the first time during the whole conversation, the servant shook his head in disappointment. Sighing as he did so.
"I understand your answer. But, you are young and destined for many things, Zucheng. I anticipate the day I can ask these questions once more. I wonder how your answers will change." said the servant. A small, nearly unnoticeable sad smile on his face.
The servant cuffed his right fist with his left hand and bowed, before turning around and walking away. His gray robes shimmering and slowly turning to another color right as the servant turned the corner.
Zucheng swiftly followed but as soon as he too turned the corner, he saw nothing but the old pillar from which the servant went around.
"...Did I get drugged?" Zucheng wondered aloud.
Perhaps he should head to the doctor hired by his family first before seeing the Six? It was a good idea, and so, he decided to ask the Six Foolish Kings what was going on later. For right now, he decided that it was probably a wise choice to make sure he hadn't consumed any hallucinogenic concoctions.
Zucheng swiftly went back towards the manor, ignoring the guards staring intensely at him. He entered as soon as the two able-bodied guards opened the door, which took a while since this time Zucheng was by himself and they were "on break". Once he was through, left then right, and then he opened a door made of a tan-colored wood. He opened it, revealing a staircase downwards to a part of the manor's basement.
Zucheng took a breath of air before entering, doing his best to hold his breath. Dull yellowish candlelight was all that lit the stairwell. And one wouldn't know why Zucheng was holding his breath until they themselves tried to breath. Putrid, thick air. The stench of a thousand incenses and medicines all coalescing into an infernal stench that would make even the most putrid of Yaoguai wince in disgust.
Soon, after turning down a sharp corner of the stairwell, he is seen in what appears to have once been a part of Low Dew City's catacombs, before much of the catacombs were flooded nearly 1,000 years ago.
Cutting open a corpse is a prisoner, Silver cuffs that seems to almost exist yet not exist at the same time are seen on the prisoner's ankles and wrists. Despite, clearly being a prisoner, she is well clothed and well fed. Only thing of peculiar note is that burned onto the back of her right shoulder appears to be the rough silhouette of a dog.
Her hair was fluffy and round like a Chow-Chow. It was of a tan color with slight undertones of some kind of off-white color. Her eyes, which were very inhuman, were dog-like in both shape, pupil size, and color. Her wide, immensely happy smile, seemed to be more canine than human.
"Doctor Gou?" echoed out Zucheng.
Usually it took her well over thirty minutes to step away from a body she was cutting up, but oddly enough this time, she did so almost immediately.
She looks up and sniffs the air. A frown on her face as she then says
"You stink."